A complaint against Mary (wife of Michael) Martin over the cost of her taxi fares has been dismissed by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. When the complaint was first made it was splashed all across every newspaper and broadcast in the land. So it’s good to see that, in the spirit of fairness and balance, today’s development has been given similar levels of coverage – er… hang on…

Of course, that would never happen. Allegations against politicians and their families are considered newsworthy, however little truth the allegations contain. When an investigation reveals an allegation to be entirely spurious, journalists suddenly find things like “facts” to be not nearly as interesting, or newsworthy.